Wikipedia Poem, No. 491

“My office smells like a theory, but here one weeps / to see the goodness of the world laid bare / and rising with the government on its lips, / the alphabet congealing in the air / around our heads.” Denis Johnson
his lips laid
& rising with the warm
goodness of theory
there they wept rivers
over their alphabet
that would not congeal
despite
how grave their wound
who inter their gravity